Maintenance of a barbed wire fence constitutes one of the major expenses of a cattle rancher. Often while "riding the fence" for inspection purposes, the rancher will discover that a bull has broken through the fence and therefore the fence must immediately be repaired. This usually necessitates splicing in new lenghts of wire and thereafter, tightening the individual strands so that the entire fence is properly taut.
This is a time consuming and expensive operation because a considerable amount of effort is involved, and often the rancher will employ complex and cumbersome fence stretching equipment in order to return the individual wires of the fence to an acceptable condition.
It is therefore desirable to be able to rapidly effect repairs on the individual wire strands of a fence by splicing in a new piece of wire, and thereafter, stretching the wire tight so that it exhibits proper tautness. It is further desirable to be able to tighten a loose wire so that the wire is placed in proper tension. Moreover, it is desirable to be able to carry out these operations with a minimum of effort, time, and cost.
There are several known expedients which may be employed in stretching loose wire so that it exhibits sufficient tension for its intended purpose. For example, it is common to use a stick and twist a loop into the wire. However, this expedient sometimes overstrains the wire as it is bent back upon itself in very tight spirals, thereby causing new breaks to subsequently occur.
French Pat. No. 1,264,002 suggests a wheel device having an aperture through which the wire is placed and thereafter the wheel is rotated so that the wire is wound thereabout and thereafter the wound up wire is captured within a series of lugs. This expedient requires that one end of the wire be disconnected prior to installation of the wheel, and furthermore, the wire is severely bent back upon itself as the wheel is rotated.
German Pat. No. 364,555 suggests a plate-like member having opposed bifurcated end portions and a slotted midportion which receives a marginal length of wire therewithin so that the wire can be bent back upon itself and stretched tight. The bifurcated ends are deformed back toward one another to capture the plate respective to the wire to thereby maintain the tautness.